SA also had a lot more money to spend on a bench. When you only pay Duncan $10M a year and Ginobli $7M a year, you can do that. It's really an unfair advantage.
That's not a fair situation to consider. Most people on this board know that contract/money plays a huge part when considering players.
Francis also flamed out in a wave of injuries/obesity. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that playing excessive minutes over the course of an entire season reduces careers and contributes to injury. Tim Duncan would be retired and hobbled on most other teams in this league. The Spurs have wisely kept him in prime form for nearly two decades despite a host of nagging injuries by limiting his minutes. Most other teams are catching on - even Thibodeau is showing signs of this with every player except Jimmy Butler. Sure - I want my players to earn their money with on court production. I also want them healthy for the postseason and the next season.
No, if you are saying: Ariza > Parsons, you are claiming Ariza is a better player than Parsons. Everybody knows that Parsons is not worth 15M. So bringing in the contract situation makes this discussion moot. Parsons was not supposed to be paid that much. Cuban wanted to stick it to Morey and came up with that ridiculous contract. In a fair market, I would expect that they would be paid about the same. This is the same problem with the Smith-Bosh thread. Everybody knows Smith is worth much more than 2M. Why use that to compare two players?
I'm not disagreeing with you whether or not Parsons is better than Ariza or vice versa. Just saying it's not fair to eliminate what to me seems like the deciding factor of not resigning Parsons and thus getting Ariza. It takes away from I believe is what we should compare the two of them by. Leaving out other factors but I think the bare essential question should be: For the difference in price of the two players, has Parson's been worth that extra money Dallas pays him over what we pay Ariza?
With Parsons instead of Ariza we would of lost the series against the Clippers. Simple as that. Trevor is a big game player. I will never doubt him again.
Playoffs Ariza (career) off rating 111, def rating 106 Playoffs Chandler (career) off rating 106, def rating 116
Let's hold on and see if he can help bring a title or two to the Rockets first. I think there's another player who wore #1 who had a pretty good run here.
